Broken World
by Rowan Arkenson
Summary: This was not a battle. A battle was just a fight, a war this was a slaughter. “Don’t think of it as you committing murder. Think of it as not giving them a chance to murder you first...” short, finished
1. Introduction

Broken World

~Rowan Arkenson

This was not a battle. A battle was just a fight. A war; this was a slaughter… _"Don't think of it as you committing murder. Think of it as not giving them a chance to murder you first."_

A short story of the inevitable battle between good and evil. Harry does not understand it. As the bodies fall around him, he begins to wonder why all this must happen…

JK Rowling owns the Harry Potter theme. The verse at the end of the short piece is the chorus from a song "Walking By" by Something Corporate. The author suggests you listen to it if you own it whilst reading this.

This was just going to be a short bittersweet (but without the sweet) fanfic but if people want me to continue it, I have an idea of where it could all go. This almost made me cry when I wrote it, but it just came out of my muse, so I hope you like it, or hate it with such a passion it almost makes it good.


	2. Broken World

They had broken the world, and Harry didn't feel anyone knew how to fix it.

He looked around him as he lowered his arms; wand in one hand, sword in the other. The battle was still raging on, and Harry could feel exhaustion sweep through him as he tried to remember. Remember what? He could remember nothing that had happened before – the battle had continued on for two days now. When would it end? Where both sides so equally matched that none would ever win? A curse shouted loudly to his left and Harry dodged aside. He lifted his wand and pointed it in the direction of the curse. "Yugara!" he yelled. He saw the body fall limp and burn into ashes. Harry had no time to feel the pain of another's death on his part; already there were more attacks being thrown at him. Hermione came running across Harry and cursed his head to fall of his body and melt onto the floor. Harry winced as Hermione ran away back to other death eaters. How could she do this so easily? Harry sweeped his sword into a death eater to his right. This wasn't right. This was not a battle. A battle was just a fight. A war; this was a slaughter.

                Harry didn't dare look to see if anyone he loved were still around. Across the darkened plain he looked as always for Voldemort to appear; but the weakened coward wasn't even courteous enough to show up to his own wars. Harry spat into his next attacker in spite and raged his wand to curse whoever this person was. He wondered for a moment whether his parents could see him now; a murderous killer, cursing and beheading all around who bore the dark mark of Voldemort.

                Exhausted and starving, Harry suddenly felt the weakness he had been holding off for a long time. He looked around him for anything he could drink to quench his throat, but nothing surrounded him but dead bodies and blood. There was a lot of blood in this death-filled hell Voldemort had ripped apart and destroyed.

                Voldemort had destroyed the world.

                So why were they still fighting?

                Everyone was dead. Everyone had gone… All the muggles Harry had ever known as a child; all were gone. Voldemort had swept the world with his evil and greed and…it was all gone. Flowers had whittled into burned-out black marks of hatred; the rivers polluted and so dark you could not tell them apart from the oil that ran down the empty plains which now replaced fields, towns, homes, lives… Those left were those around him now, dying at each other's hands.

                Harry screamed in anger at the utter pointlessness of this draining exercise. _"Don't think of it as you committing murder. Think of it as not giving them a chance to murder you first."_ Harry heard Remus' voice echo through his head a week ago when he had voiced his worries about the coming battle they knew then was inevitable.

                But they would all end up dead soon anyway – was there really any point?

                The old Harry was trying to push through, screaming in his head that he had to avenge his parents, he had to avenge all his friends lost to the darkness. But Harry couldn't listen to that naïve voice so full of the hope he had lost a long time ago.

                The end would come when he faced Voldemort; either for the death of him and for the destruction of the world, or for his sanity. Harry would rather die than be the only one left. He knew that. He also knew with the annoying voice ringing in his head that he could not leave the world, his world, the world he had lived and loved in, to face this evil on its own.

                As Harry faced his next attacker ("Yugara!" and the death eater was gone. He never existed.) he felt a sudden shift in the air. As he looked around he searched the expressions of those nearest and saw a mixture of fear, anticipation, and triumph. Was that his old friend Tonks he saw triumph in?

                Were they winning?

                Harry felt a shout behind him. "Hold!" It was the old voice of Dumbledore. Harry almost grinned. Albus was still alive. There was perhaps some hope… But no. All hope had died when the world had ended.

                The remaining death eaters; five in total, but standing together in a group. _Pathetic, thought Harry. _What would Voldemort say if he could see his brave servants now? Surrendering, at wand-point? By an old man Voldemort thinkst of as his greatest enemy; besides me of course.__

                "Mercy," Dumbledore said softly. All movement had stopped and a few had gathered around. Harry could still see figures off in the distance who had stopped fighting in the realisation that all the death eaters were dead excepting the few Dumbledore had captive.

                "No mercy," said one death eater. They shook their head. "Voldemort will kill us anyway. There is nothing left for death eaters who fail their master. We could not take mercy from you anyway. You are the enemy."

                Dumbledore nodded. "Avada Kedavra." In one strong and powerful green blast the curse took all three death eaters' lives.

                Harry felt fear clutch at his throat and his heart began beating wildy. He spun round. No one was there. His parents were shooting at him with the Avada Kedavra curse. He turned to the death eaters and saw one's face. It was James Potter. "No!" he screamed. Harry saw the green light flash in his mind. The high-pitched scream of the dead flowers over the world crackled and burned. His mind was on fire. It hurt. Harry clutched his scar. Images of his parents shot into his mind. 

"Harry. Harry." It was Dumbledore. Dumbledore was holding Harry, who didn't bother to struggle against the old man. "Harry, it's over. It's over."

"No," he whispered hoarsely. "No it's not." He looked at Dumbledore with pure hatred and disappointment in his fear-filled eyes before collapsing against the headmaster of a broken school and falling to the ground.

Harry awoke with tears already in his eyes. Flashes of murdered death eaters, death eaters dead because of him… Sirius, his parents, dead because of them… Why?

                He sat up roughly and felt the ground beneath him. It was rough. He was still on the battle ground. Of course, he doubted that everywhere didn't look like this now, so who could tell? The sky was dark, lighting flashing through occasionally. Looking around, he didn't see any dead carcasses. For that's all they were now. The men, the women, all who lay there that day, still and lifeless on the ground, they may have had families, but they were dead too. All who had known them, all who had witnessed their existence, their lives, they were all gone. These people, it was people Harry had killed, all were dead. Killed. Murdered. Gone. Whatever you wanted to call it but no word of the same meaning that came to Harry made him feel any better.

                Harry looked up into the faces of the last people on earth: there stood above him was Albus Dumbledore, Remus Lupin, a kind-faced woman of about 40 whom Harry didn't recognize, Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom. Harry would have been surprised by this last boy, now a man, who stood, unwavering, cuts and bruises everywhere visible and probably everywhere else too, were it not for Draco Malfoy who stood to the right of Harry who shocked him with his presence even more.

                As his former-enemy helped him off of the ground, Harry asked, "You were fighting?"

                "Of course Potter," Draco said, all sarcasm dropped from his voice. "You didn't really think I'd leave you all to fight alone did you?"

                Harry was about to retort that they were hardly alone, when he remembered that they were all alone now. He put a hand on Draco's shoulder. "I thought you wanted nothing to do with it?"

                "I didn't, but when my father sent an assassin after me and I found out it was him, it seemed I no longer had a problem with killing all of his friends." Draco looked around absent-mindedly. "I suppose he's dead now," he said with a strange sadness Harry couldn't quite place. "My mother too. My cousin, Gerry. Great guy he was…"

                "Draco." Harry shook Draco slightly before the young Malfoy's eyes faced his own. Tears were glistening at the edges as Draco looked to Harry for any sign of hope. But Harry just shook his head. "No Draco. There is no one left. There is only us." He looked around at them all. "Seven. Is that all? Is this all that's left? Ron – " Harry stopped. He looked at Hermione. She rushed up and hugged him tightly but all he could do was wrap his arms around her stiffly. Ron was dead. Ron. His first friend. His best friend for seven years now. His brother. He was dead.

                Harry didn't think he could take it. Everyone was gone. Everyone. Everyone he had ever loved, apart from the six standing before him. Harry collapsed to the ground, crying uncontrollably as Hermione clutched him and cried freely on his shoulder. "Ron…" she whispered. Harry hugged her, embraced her, held onto his only friend left so hard he thought he would break her ribs. She did not complain and held on to him equally as tight. Harry heard no words of comfort from above, felt no movement from all around. He knew he was not only crying for himself, for Ron; he was crying for everyone around who could not cry. For the ones who had to be strong.

                Harry eventually pulled himself together and left the tears on his face as he and Hermione stood shakily up. "So…" he started, looking around at the small group of people. He gulped as he prepared himself to voice the two words he knew all wanted to desperately know the answer to, but all too afraid to ask it. He directed his question at Dumbledore; the man who had always answered his questions, helped him through, the man who now had eyes so lost and empty Harry felt sick.

                "What now?"

*So why do you leave these stories unfinished?   
My Cheshire cat doorstop with tears in your eyes   
And why do you look when you've already found it   
And what did you find that would leave you walkin by?*


End file.
